Cairo: Two employees of Egypt's Sharm al-Sheikh airport have been detained for questioning over the crash of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people aboard, two security officials and an airport employee said yesterday.

"Seventeen people are being held; two of them are suspected of helping whoever planted the bomb on the plane at Sharm al-Sheikh airport," said one of the security officials, both of whom declined to be named.

The second security official said CCTV footage showed a baggage handler carrying a suitcase from an airport building to another man, who was loading luggage onto the doomed airliner from beneath the plane on the runway.

An employee at the airport media department, who also preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed two members of the ground crew had been detained for questioning on Monday night.

Egyptian Interior Minister Magdi Abdel Ghaffar said there were no arrests. "This news is incorrect, it was probably reported because of the strict inspection checks that all airport workers are undergoing," he said.

Russia's FSB security service said yesterday it was certain a bomb had brought down the Airbus jet on October 31, joining Britain and the United States in reaching that conclusion.

Egypt has not yet formally confirmed that a bomb was responsible, saying it wants to await the completion of all investigations.